


the little prince

by unicornpoe



Series: Stucky Bingo 2019 Fills [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Best Friends, Captain America Septender Challenge 2019, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Schmoop, Sharing a Bed, Stucky Bingo 2019, Tenderness, this is not a The Little Prince AU I just like pretentious titles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-25 16:08:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20726999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornpoe/pseuds/unicornpoe
Summary: Steve’s sitting on the palace steps when Bucky pulls up, his arms wrapped around his knees, the huge blue sweater that Bucky left last time he visited swamping his skinny frame. He still looks like that solemn little prince Bucky spotted all those years ago: stately, and slender, and pale, with a soul too old for the body that holds it.***Bucky visits home.





	the little prince

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the People of Twitter who told me via pole that they wanted me to post this whether it was good or not. I sincerely hope that it's actually good, but if not, you brought this upon yourselves you little gremlins. 
> 
> This fic fulfills the square "sharing a bed" on my Stucky Bingo card
> 
> Go forth and read about the softest damn boys ever<3

Bucky taps his fingers against the armrest of the car, impatient. 

He can feel the nervous energy flooding through his limbs, pouring out of that tightly coiled place behind his ribs. 

He got a call this morning. 

Not from Steve, of course not. Queen Sarah, though, Steve’s Ma—she’d called Bucky this morning, her voice soft and weary, and said “perhaps,” and, “you know Steve,” and, “if you can,” and so here Bucky is, just a few hours later, racing across the country in the backseat of a sleek black car. 

He worries about Steve—god, he worries about Steve—so much that it’s the hardest thing in the world to be away at school from him. So much that it was the easiest thing in the world to travel thirty miles on what just happens to be his first weekend off in ages, to race over here at the slightest hint of worry in Sarah’s tone. 

Bucky’s phone buzzes against his thigh, and he fumbles to get it. Disjointed movements. A text lights up the screen. 

**Steve: ** ignore my mother

Bucky’s lips tug as he reads it. It’s been three months since the last time he could get away from university to see Steve, and he misses him like he can’t describe. He can almost hear the poorly-restrained exasperation in Steve’s tone, hiding that core of exhaustion within him. 

**Bucky: ** Be there in twenty :)

Steve doesn’t answer, which Bucky takes the way it’s meant: Steve’s happy at the prospect of seeing him, but still too annoyed at the way Bucky and Sarah are handling this to show it. 

Bucky tucks his phone back into his pocket, and naps the rest of the way there. 

  
  
  
They grew up together. 

Bucky’s dad is Captain of the Royal Guard—as Bucky is currently training to be—and Bucky spent hours learning at his father’s side, curious and eager, and undoubtedly more taken with the little golden prince who sat, so still and solemn, on the throne beside Queen Sarah. 

Bucky will never forget the day that he found that little, quiet, golden prince spitting mad in the courtyard, blood dripping out of his swollen nose, his fists flying and his eyes bright with tears he refused to shed. Bucky doesn’t remember who he was fighting, and neither probably does Steve: it doesn’t matter. Bucky had jumped into the fight beside him, watching his back, helping him win whatever instance of injustice Steve was battling for and then after, after, when Bucky brought Steve home to his mama and she cleaned both of them up, after— 

“I’ll watch over you,” Bucky said to Steve, as he walked Steve back across the courtyard and up the palace stairs. Everything was made of marble, sleek and modern; there was a shiny car to their right, all mirror-like paint and glimmering chrome. “Like my dad watches over your mama.”

Steve Rogers was a prince, but right then, he looked like nothing more than a grubby, bright-eyed, glorious little boy. He smiled at Bucky, and even with his missing baby teeth and his lips split swollen, Bucky felt that smile catch him right in the chest. 

“We’ll be best friends,” said Steve. 

They are. 

  
  
  
  
  


Steve’s sitting on the palace steps when Bucky pulls up, his arms wrapped around his knees, the huge blue sweater that Bucky left last time he visited swamping his skinny frame. 

Steve got bigger, but not by much. Right now, separated by panes of glass and feet of space, Steve still looks like that solemn little prince Bucky spotted all those years ago: stately, and slender, and pale, with a soul too old for the body that holds it. The shadows around his eyes are pinkish-gray. 

Bucky gets out of the car. 

Steve doesn’t smile when he sees him, but Bucky can tell that’s an active decision Steve’s making; that he’s forcibly trying to keep his lips in that long, straight line. It means the same thing that a smile would. Steve is happy that Bucky is here. 

“Hi,” says Bucky, and comes to sit next to Steve on the steps. 

It’s cold outside. The trees that surround the vastness of land the palace sits on are quickly turning gold and red and orange and russet; Bucky can smell their rotted, loamy scent, coming up from the places where they gather at the side of the road in weather-damp pockets. It’s a scent that fills up his lungs, that reminds him so forcibly of home—god, he misses home. He misses Steve. He misses being here, next to him, in protection-distance. Close. 

Together they watch the car that brought Bucky here curve off down the driveway in a long arc, kicking up dust behind its tires, and Steve tips his head onto Bucky’s shoulder, curls his hand around Bucky’s wrist. 

“Hi, Buck,” he murmurs. 

The weight of him is slight against Bucky’s side, but it’s the surest thing in Bucky’s life. Bucky wraps his arm around Steve’s waist, pulling him in closer, and dismisses Steve’s little hum of false-protest with a tighter squeeze. He feels Steve sigh against him after a moment—relief—and rubs Steve’s arm briskly, trying to work some warmth into his shivering frame. 

“Let’s go inside,” says Bucky, even as he lets Steve curl their bodies even closer together, until they’re almost slotted back into their usual formless tangle that they lived their lives in when they were young. BuckyandSteve. SteveandBucky. “It’s cold out here.”

Steve lifts his head until he can look Bucky in the eye, using his free hand to nudge his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose. He’s smiling now; a quirk of his lips, fond and something else. He makes Bucky feel like he’s falling when he looks at him like that, but Bucky doesn’t mind. 

“I told you not to come,” Steve says. He pulls the sleeve of his sweater down over his hands, hunching into Bucky’s hold in a way that completely negates what he’s saying out loud. Bucky learned a long time ago that Steve speaks with his actions rather than his words. Bucky’s the only person in the world who knows this, other than Sarah. “You’re so busy...”

“Never too busy for my best guy,” says Bucky, not really teasing at all. 

Steve’s gaze is steady and blue. “What did Ma tell you?” he asks. 

Sighing, Bucky nudges Steve to standing. He goes to pull away, but Steve winds his grip around Bucky’s arm, so with a smile, Bucky drifts back in. “Said you wouldn’t take a couple days off if you didn’t have a distraction.” He laughs as they make their way into the palace. “Guess I’m the distraction.”

Steve gives Bucky a blurry sort of smile, and now, under the brighter lights of inside, Bucky can see how out of it he really looks. Not really sick—Bucky’s seen him really sick on a few occasions, all terrifying, all seared into Bucky’s brain forever—but run down. Like he needs a break. 

Bucky shouldn’t feel this way, but he’s sort of glad that he’s the person who can get Steve to rest. 

“I’m fine—Well. I’ve been worse,” Steve amends. He leans into the arm Bucky slides around his shoulders as they pile into the elevator at once, warm and present, drooping further and further into Bucky’s hold the longer they’re together. “I should really go to that press conference tonight…”

“Nope,” says Bucky. He herds Steve out of the elevator once they reach his floor, steering him down the hallway to Steve’s suite. Bucky has a key card, and he digs it out of his jacket pocket, swiping it before Steve can even move to reach his own. “You should keep me company. I traveled  _ thirty miles  _ to see you, Stevie,” he says, blinking down at Steve even as he ushers both of them to the big, plush couch in the middle of the room. “Don’t let me down.”

Steve laughs, helpless. Bucky loves the sound of that laugh. “Ok,” Steve says. He smiles indulgently even as Bucky urges him to lay down on the couch, and something around the edges of that smile gets so unbearably tender when Bucky peels off his jacket and joins him. So unbearably tender that Bucky rolls forward, drawing Steve in close to his chest. 

“Sleep now,” Bucky says. As he speaks, he realizes that he really is tired; he’d been woken up by Sarah’s call very early this morning, and he’d come here the minute he got off the phone, and that stress that always seems to build up within him whenever he’s away from Steve for too long has had three whole months to accumulate. Only now is it lessening, and he’s exhausted with wanting him. “C’mon, Stevie…”

He needs a haircut. His bangs fall down over his thick-framed glasses, and his hair has a very slight wave around his temples and ears. When he looks at Bucky, Bucky’s chest cracks open. 

“Yeah,” says Steve, so softly. He looks really, really tired. His lips are a little dry, and Bucky wants to rest his thumb in the delicate scoop above his top lip, just to feel. Steve’s hands are on Bucky, gentle and tender as they trace the shape of Bucky’s ribs in the same way Steve draws with his pastels and his pencils: with so much care. “God, Buck, I missed you…”

Bucky curls his fingers over the back of Steve’s neck, holding on so lightly, and his fingertips brush the little trail of blond-white hair that runs down Steve’s warm nape. He tugs, barely any force behind it: Steve drifts into him, limbs winding around Bucky like clinging ivy, nosing at the hollow of Bucky’s neck. 

“I missed you, too, punk,” Bucky whispers into the soft, messy top of Steve’s head. Steve hums against him, a lovely, happy sound. They don’t let go. 

  
  
  
  
  


Steve is awake when Bucky opens his eyes, his face mere breaths away from Bucky’s. There’s a smile stretched, easy, across his lips. His eyes are wrinkled at the corners beneath his crooked glasses, evidence of the years that have passed since they first met—those years that they’ve spent together. He’s dream-soft. Loose-limbed and sleepy. 

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Steve murmurs to Bucky, quiet like it’s a secret or a confession or a private, perfect thing. His eyes move slowly over Bucky’s face, scanning his features; the sun, spreading over a field. 

“I want—” Bucky starts, almost no sound at all, and Steve laughs like he’s doing it so he won’t cry. 

“Yes,” he says. 

Bucky fits around Steve like they were ripped from the same piece of cloth, all of their jagged seams coming together just like they always do. When he lets his mouth sink down onto Steve’s, Steve says “Mmm,” low and deep in the back of his throat, and his hands grip the thick fabric of Bucky’s sweatshirt, cling to it, hold on. 

Steve’s lips are soft, soft, soft. He parts them, and Bucky sinks down a little further. He tastes Steve on his tongue now, and it’s like the smell of home outside: this is what Bucky loves. This place, this smell, this taste, this man. This solemn, bright, beautiful prince. 

“Oh,” breathes Steve when they come up for air. He blinks at Bucky dazedly, his mouth bright pink and swollen. His glasses are thoroughly askew, and Bucky straightens them with a hand that feels clumsy and shaky with the memory of that kiss. 

“Stevie,” says Bucky, a mumble, a sigh: his eyes drift closed as he lowers back down to kiss him again, and the last thing he sees are Steve’s soft, round eyes, cornflower blue, and warm. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments/kudos sustain me, otherwise I will wither away into a grumpy pile of angsty bones. Come cry with me on twitter @unicornpoe where you can vote in more ill-advised poles!


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